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[Poll] Favorite Coastline Styles

Hi Guildmembers,

I wanted to make a small poll about your favorite Style of Coastline Borders. I am very interested in exploring the opinions here into different Design Matters concerning the Art of Mapmaking. Its just a quick poll, so I hope for some participations. Also if you like some other styles, whcih I miss in my example, please link such with a comment.

The Styles A, C, F obviously could also aply to any other syle additionally, but I didnt display it to still ahve a good overview of styles.

I picked C/E/G - though B,D,E,G are only subtly different, and hard to choose from. A definitely has charm (elegance in simplicity) but it can be difficult to quickly determine the coastline as more details (cities, roads, rivers, etc) are added.

Other styles that were not represented that I'm partial to:

Bathymetric - using the height map, actually show where the continental shelves, trenches, and ridges are. Since I use most maps for RPG purposes, it's nice to know the rough depth of the water in any particular area (even if it's incredibly difficult to get a decent tectonically accurate ocean floor)

RobA's Artistic Regional Map in Gimp - specifically, the Displace/Smear Effect in Post #7 - i prefer the random effect to the more regular effects in the poll (option C: Texture Burn being the notable exception)

I think it totally depends on the map itself. You could ruin a map by using the wrong one for it or you can really add to the flavor you are after by choosing the best match. I like some of those more than others but that's just a personal flair one way or the other. In fact, displaying them on a burnt parchment paper like they are I think will make some look better than others too. I think that type of paper feeds the burned textures best which interestingly is the one that is winning as well.

“When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden